do you wash your clothes in hot, warm, or cold water?
can you tell a difference in how clean they get in cold versus warm/hot?
can you tell a difference in your utility bill if you use cold versus warm/hot?

September 24th, 2008 04:12 PM

mamaswantz

Towels and jeans, I wash in hot water. Whites, I wash in hot water as well, although I have been told to wash whites in cold water because hot just bakes the stains in, although I have not found it to be so. Perhaps if you do'nt use a stain treatment on the stains, it would do that, I dunno. But my whites don't get white again unless I wash em in hot water, with a good shot of clorox for whites.

The rest of the laundry is done in warm water. I am sure we'd see a difference in the utility bill if I'd use cold or warm water only, but then the jeans wouldn't be clean and the towels would stink... so I just use hot water and grin and bear it. We burn wood for heat in the winter, so I think (hope) that compensates for my usage of fuel to wash clothes.

February 11th, 2009 01:20 PM

mose_e

i use 'our' detergent...and use mostly cool water for all our clothes (the hot water line to my washer has a problem, so 'warm' turns out to be cool...and 'hot' takes FOREVER to fill the washer). anyway, about 'our' - one of it's sales pitches is that it works well with cold water. it doesn't have the _smell_ of tide/febreeze...but i can't say that the towels stink either.

February 11th, 2009 03:32 PM

Momof2

Quote:mose_e wrote:
(the hot water line to my washer has a problem, so 'warm' turns out to be cool...and 'hot' takes FOREVER to fill the washer).

Sounds familiar! I have mine turned to warm, but it feels pretty cool. I use Tide or right now it's Gain with baking soda and my clothes come out clean. I do use partly hot for my towels. For some reason, my head tells me that Hot cleans better. :)